Contractors from all over Santa Barbara County commented during Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting on a proposal to develop a community workforce agreement ordinance, which would affect contracts for some government projects.
A community workforce agreement, also called a project labor agreement, is negotiated between public agencies and construction trade unions “with the goal of providing a stable, skilled workforce and high quality standards on publicly funded projects,” said county supervisors Joan Hartmann and Das Williams, who pitched the idea to their colleagues.
The supervisors voted 3-2 to direct staff to develop a community workforce agreement ordinance and come back with details at a later date. Supervisors Hartmann, Williams and Gregg Hart supported the move while Peter Adam and Steve Lavagnino opposed it.
The project labor agreement would have a “targeted hire provision” aimed at getting people from “disadvantaged communities” — low-income workers, veterans and others — into construction through apprenticeship training programs, according to the board letter from Hartmann and Williams.
Michael Lopez, of the Santa Barbara Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 114, said the Community Workforce Agreement would boost the efforts of apprenticeships and trained workers.
“This is how we want to take care of our local people,” Lopez said.
Several nonunion contractors told the supervisors that the agreement would limit their ability to get county jobs in the future.
Jesse Bishop of CalPortland Construction argued that a community workforce agreement would increase project costs and is unnecessary given that projects are already subject to prevailing wage laws.
“I’m here opposed to PLAs and workforce agreements that exclude 85 percent of the local construction workforce from negotiating their contracts,” he said.
During deliberations, Hart said the effort is a “process that advantages local companies, local employees in a way to get jobs to local people to keep money recirculating.”
Hart pushed a project labor agreement through the Santa Barbara City Council in December before leaving for the Board of Supervisors, one that applies to Public Works Department projects over $5 million.
Recently, the supervisors voted to alter the county’s local-vendor preference policy to give local vendors the chance to match the lowest bid for $25,000-plus contracts on tangible goods.
Williams said he resented accusations that he was promoting the idea because he has received campaign contributions from union groups.
“If we wanted to fix the deck, we would have fixed it a lot earlier,” he said.
Hart and Williams called some of the comments in opposition “misinformation” and Williams went so far as to call some concerns fear-mongering.
“Experience in other communities is nowhere near as dramatic as what is being discussed,” he said.
Adam said developing the ordinance is unnecessary.
One of the reasons listed in the board letter for pursuing a community workforce agreement was to avoid labor strife, and when Adam asked staff whether that has ever been an issue with a construction contract, they said no.
— Noozhawk managing editor Giana Magnoli can be reached at gmagnoli@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.